Besides having an unpleaseant odor and the odor “clinging” to your clothes and PPE-Don’t forget than BME is a Cat 1 Sensitizer. Benchwork is not recommended as it should be used in a hood. We have one individual who now gets migraines from BME after working at another facility where they were exposed to BME used in low concentrations in a molecular lab next door.

Tammy Rechtin

>Not pleasant, but was it a hazard?

The odor of BME beyond "not pleasant" - it's disruptive. I had an experience at a previous institution where fugitive BME odors led to 3 building-wide fire alarms in a year as people thought the smells were related to natural gas leaks. People who don't use BME in the hood to control fugitive odors risk having their (and others') work interrupted for significant amounts of time while the fire department investigates these calls.

This is a case when looking at the properties of a chemical in isolation leads to missing key aspects of the situation.

- Ralph

Ralph Stuart, CIH, CCHO
Environmental Safety Manager
Keene State College
603 358-2859

ralph.stuart**At_Symbol_Here**keene.edu

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